Diana Gameros Yearns For an "Eternal Return"

Diana Gameros didn't leave anything in San Francisco. The Mexican songstress found her musical heart, instead, when she relocated to the Bay Area city. Since that time, Gameros has grown into her versatile artistic identity. With relaxed vocals that recall Brazilian singer Cibelle's tone, she blends folk sensibilities and jazzy horns together with the sounds of traditional Latin American music.

"I am pretty eclectic in my taste," Gameros tells the Weekly. "I like music from all over the world from Spain, from Brazil, from France." The multilingual singer is bringing her guitar and unique style from Frisco to Viento y Agua Coffeehouse in Long Beach Friday night for another installment of the Mujer(es) Cantando showcase.

Originally from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Gameros settled in the bay in 2008. At first, it was just a vacation destination as she did all the touristy things with her mother. "I had plans to go back to Mexico and work on music projects," Gameros says. She was living in Michigan studying music at the time. At a friend's suggestion, however, Gameros decided to give San Francisco a go, not as a visitor, but as a musician. "I'm going to do music, that's all," she said of her return. And that's all that Gameros has done in the city for the past six years.

The move literally paid off. "My audience is extremely diverse," she says. That came in handy when she launched a Kickstarter campaign for her debut album Eterno Retorno, as fans funded it above and beyond its $15,000 goal.

The resulting 11-song effort's poetic title translates to "Eternal Return" and serves as the base concept for her music. "It comes from my personal experience as an immigrant from Mexico," she says. "It was mainly a play of words on the notion of something taking a long time, like how long it has taken me to go back to my homeland and reunite with my family."